In a previous job we had to make a plugin that could access win32 APIs for a bass ackwards set of companies who were determinedly sticking with IE6 or IE8. Thei

In a previous job we had to make a plugin that could access win32 APIs for a bass ackwards set of companies who were determinedly sticking with IE6 or IE8. Their lockdown prevented the installation of proper desktop apps/services but allowed the installation of activeX (totally safe and secure, obviously). All the devs vehemently objected to ActiveX but couldn't actually come up with any viable alternatives other than turning down the business... If they had chrome or ff we could have probably gotten all we needed from the OS without directly using win32 (mostly desktop screenshot capture) or if they'd allowed us to ship them an msi to push to their machines we could have done a variety of other solutions... But alas, no. So, I guess if your customers are in some insane semi-enterprise technology wasteland with impenetrable beurocracy and inscrutable "IT security" then yea, ActiveX might be a viable solution. I quit after the plugin was repositioned to be our main offering above a semi-decent SAAS web service we offered. All aboard he ActiveX train! "The CEO can install ActiveX on his iPad right?"